


The Master's Tools

by Darkmagyk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Family, Gen, Slavery, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4640703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia Has never been to a desert before, but she still feels like she's retuning as she rescues Han. <br/>The ghosts of a Slave woman killed by sand people, and her enigma of a son do not clarify things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Master's Tools

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the women of star wars appreciation week prompt "Someone has to save out skins."

She’d never actually seen a desert. Not when she had traveled with her father on aid missions. Not when she’d acted as an Alderaanian ambassador. Even over the last four years, crossing the Galaxy and hiding from the Empire and fighting them along the way, when she’d seen things she never imagined, star gazing as a child, but she still hadn’t seen a desert. 

Until now. 

They’d arrived on Tatooine two days ago. Luke, Leia, and Chewie in the Falcon. Lando was already inside Jabba’s Palace. Tomorrow, in bounty hunter leathers and a helmet liberated from the head of a dead man, Leia would follow and Chewie in tow. If all went well, they’d escape that night.

If it didn’t go well... that’s why they brought the Jedi Knight. 

But now Leia stood in the market of Mos Espa, as Luke paid for a snack, his favorite hometown treat. She didn’t look to out of place, in the rough brown dress Luke had pointed out to her at a market on a slightly less desolate planet a few weeks ago, when they were planning. But she was self conscious all the same. Of her pale skin, protected under a truly ungodly amount of sunshield, and of her soft hands, callused only from blaster use, not from hard labor. She felt like she didn’t belong here. 

Or, no, that wasn’t right. She felt like she _shouldn’t_ belong here. But as she stared out into the desert beyond the market, a part of her felt like she did. Or at least, like she could. 

_Welcome, child_. It seemed to call out to her. _Come, my lost daughter._

The blue sky and the rolling dunes were still, and yet it almost seemed like there was something out there, moving, unseen to the eye. She shook her head to clear it. Perhaps the desert was like hyperspace. It drove you insane if you stared at it to long.

She looked at the nearest stand instead. It housed jewelry. Bits of beads and leather on display. She picked up one small square of stone. There were three of them, each carved with a different, intricate symbol. She picked up one with a swirling cut around the center. 

“A Japor Snippet.” She said, and the stand-keeper, not actually an old woman, but worn and tired looking, nodded,.

“Yes, its japor Ivory.Very rare these days.” She agreed, “These are my last three. And I carve them myself.”

Leia stared at it. _A token, my child._

“How much” Leia asked, then removed her small purse and counted out the price.

“Thank you.” Leia said, smiling, and picking up the stone. 

Luke finished with his purchases, and they went back to the little room they had rented in a less than reputable inn. 

“What did you buy?” Luke asked, as he shared his sweet meat with her. 

She took the stone from where she’d stored it in her purse. 

His eyes widened. “Japor Ivory? I’ve only seen one of these once before. Biggs mom had one. A family heirloom. This must have cost a fortune.”

Leia had costume jewelry that was more expensive. But she didn’t think Luke would appreciate that, so she just said, “I got a good deal, and it really spoke to me.”

Luke nodded like that wasn’t a strange thing to say, “Do you know what the carving means?”

“No,” Leia said. “Like I said, it spoke to me. Do you know?”

"No, but it's pretty." 

"Then I’ll leave it with you, when I go to the Palace tomorrow. I’d hate to lose it.” She glanced out the third story window, in the direction she knew the palace was. She couldn’t see it, just the desert, vast and endless and inviting. 

Luke hated this place. And she can see why, she’d nearly been violently ill when they’d past the slave apartments, and that was before Luke had told her what they were. But she also...she also found it all strangely familiar. 

“Something is on you mind.” Luke said, he stared at her with a Jedi’s gaze. Most people, she knew, found the look disconcerting. Leia was not one of those people.

“I…” she trailed off, how to explain? But then, Luke was a native of Tatooine and a Jedi besides. Maybe he would understand that the desert seemed to be whispering to her. “Something about the desert.” she tried “It almost feels like it's trying to...talk to me…”

No, even a Jedi was not going to understand that. He gave her the strangest look. 

“There are old Legends.” he started, Looking out the window she had just moments before. “Of the old Desert Goddesses and Spirits. That if you had a special calling, sometimes, they would speak to you. In a sand storm or a heat vision. It was said sometimes the wise elders, when they died, would come back, in dreams, as bright lights, the most powerful ones could even return as ghosts.” he stops suddenly and looks so confused, but then his features smooth out. “Perhaps,” he said with a Jedi calm, projected and cool and utterly forced. “Its because we are here together, and they approve of our rescue mission.” 

_That's not it._ She thought, but smiled at him. "Then let's succeed."

She and Luke shared the one bed that night. It was not the first time, and Leia always looked forward to it. Each time she had the same dream. Both of them, together. It was dark and warm and safe and full of so much love. It was bliss.

So she was surprised when she found herself on a rock formation. Facing the desert she had been enamored with all day. 

It took her a moment, and then she realized that there was a pressure on her arm, and she looked down to see a little boy holding her hand.

This has happened before, she thought. She had stood on a rock, holding the hand of a little boy and looked out at a desert. It was strange, she hadn't thought of that in years. 

But this was a different boy. He had the same blond hair and the same tan clothing. He looked up at her with the same blue eyes. But it wasn't the same boy even though she thought she’d seen him somewhere before. Or someone like him.

“Have you come to free us?” He asked.

“What?” 

Leia became aware of the other presence just before it spoke. 

“Ani,” The woman said, holding out her and the little boy run to her, threw his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. 

“Mom.” Is the only word she could make out between the sobs he let out on her shoulder. 

The woman smiled sadly at Leia. Then lifted her son up, and let him cling to her. The boy was younger than she originally thought. Maybe 6 instead of 9.

The woman walked to stand by Leia. Her dress was like Leia’s, only the material looked even courser and the color darker. But she had the same dark hair as Leia, only specked with gray. The same brown eyes framed by wrinkles. She was beautiful. And Leia thought for a second that it is some sort of future reflection of herself. 

But no. The woman’s eyes were full of wisdom and kindness. She’d seen unimaginable horrors. But unlike Leia who channels them into anger and passion, this woman has channeled them into mercy and grace. Like Luke, calm and steady and eternal.

“It has been a long time,” she told Leia. “My son does not know what to do with himself.” 

Leia didn't know what to say to that, didn't know what this boy and this woman were, or why she was with them. 

“You’ve been staring at the desert.” The woman said. “Its a harsh and unforgiving friend. But it is beautiful in its way.”

“I’ve never seen one in person before.” Leia said, for want of something better. 

“No, I suppose not. Perhaps that’s the point.” She hugged her son even tighter and looked Leia up and down. “It has a way of turning its children against itself. They flee if they can and don’t want to return.” 

“Luke didn’t want to come back.” Leia agrees.

“No, he didn’t.” She agrees, “the desert holds many painful memories for him, for us all.” She looking to her left now, and Leia can see something on the horizon. Not more sand, but another rock formation or something. 

"Your br...Luke, did he tell you about Sandpeople?"

"The Tusken Raiders? Yes, a little, just in case."

"Well, that was one of their camps, a long time ago, before you were born. One day, they kidnapped a woman. A local farmer. Two months later, her family buried her and the camp was found slaughtered."

"What happened?"

"It can take a long time to die." The woman responds. "The legend goes that the desert spirits got so upset at the tournament of one of its children that it took one Tusken life for every wound inflicted on the woman. Two months of torture, I am sure you can imagine that was a lot. People leave sacrificed there now. Settlers and tuskens. One to ward against the vengeful spirit, and one to thank it for Justice and ask for protection."

"Justice," Leia repeats.

"Yes, for the deaths of many settlers over many hundreds of years." But then she smiles brightly. "Leia," and her name sound different on this woman's tongue. "Is an old language word on Tatooine, did you know that?"

Leia frowns, "It's not Huttese."

"No, the old language, of the first people. Leia, it means Justice."

Leia smiles at that, "I like that. It's a flower on Lothal. And means the law on Chalacta. And on Naboo it means sun. Oh and I think it's a popular rum on Corellia." It wasn't Alderaanian, it was the one she had come with. It would have been disrespectful to change it, so she had searched our meanings at various points in time.

The woman reached a weathered, callused hand and brushed the japor. “That symbol. It means justice, too.”

Leia looked down at it. Her name, written in swirls and waves. Foreign and the closest thing she had. Her name. The one thing she had from before Alderaan, and one of the few she had after. 

"And what do you think of our Tatooine justice, Leia Organa." And her last name had always been perfect, but right at this moment. In the desert, with this woman, it felt like it was missing something.

Justice on Alderaan had been full of protections and procedures. Justice for Alderaan had been delivered by Luke into one tiny exhaust port.

"It's necessary. Sometimes." 

"My son agreed with you." She said sadly, and the boy spoke again

"I'm sorry, mom. I'm sorry for everything."

"I'm not the one you owe an apology to."

Leia wasn’t listening though. She looked at the ruined camp and then at the woman and the little boy. Trying to make since of it, _My son agreed with you._

“You were the woman the Tuskens took?” Leia said at last, “but...he’s just a little boy. What does he know of justice. What could he have done.”

“He was not a little boy then.” She said, “He was nearly a man, and already a warrior.”

“ _He_ was the vengeful spirit.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” She agreed. “He destroyed the camp, and everyone in it.”

“Good.” Leia said “They deserved it.”

“Does anyone truly deserve senseless slaughter?”

“No,” Leia said, “But that wasn’t senseless. They kidnapped and tortured you to death. The did that to many many people.”

“And what of innocence? The women and the children?” 

“Did the women not know that this was standard practice? Did they fight to free you? They are not innocent in this.” She faulted for a moment when she thought of the children. The boy, in his mother’s arms, was a child himself. 

_War costs innocents._ She had been told, 13 years old and sitting in a vacation home far from Alderaan. _There is no way around that Leia. Some people will tell you it's never worth that cost. Your father for one. I am not one of those people. But I will tell you: measure the losses with the gains and never consider it a light thing. I can’t tell you what to believe, Leia._

_Father says that we shouldn’t let our issues with the Empire become a war._

_I know,_ her teacher had agreed, _Not all wars can be avoided. And not all wars should be. But you have to decide for yourself if this is one of those times. And act accordingly. I was just a bit older then you when I fought my first war. And I didn't know all the consequences. I don't want that for you, Skygirl._

Now, facing the desert with mother and child, she doesn’t know if the boys war was avoidable, if if should have been avoided. 

“You don’t have to have all the answers Leia.” the woman assured her. 

“No, but, Violence, sometimes, it gets to a point, where it's unavoidable. Compassion can’t fix everything.” She had been 11 for that lesson, “We must be prepared to fight.”

“Others must be ready to toss aside their weapons and let love win out. That has a beautiful, noble place. But not you, Leia. Not today.”

The boy looked up at her then, blue eyes, like Luke’s but not, curious. “Mom, has she come to free us?”

“I came to free my friend.” Leia said, “That’s why I’m on Tatooine.” And what were these dead people, these desert ghosts need to be freed from, anyway.

“Oh, but Leia, Somebody needs to save our skins. And I think it needs to be you.” 

“No, I don’t…”

“Understand.” The woman finished, “No, I expect you don’t. Not yet.” Suddenly she looked unbearably sad. “But you will, my poor, dear girl. You will learn.”

It was ominous. Leia didn’t like the sound of it. Neither did the boy.

“No,” he shook his head frantically, “No, not her, not now. I have to help her.”

“It's too late for that, Ani.” the woman said kindly, “She’s lost to you right now. And it's time for you to go.”

“No,” He cried, “No, I want to stay here, stay home. With you, and with her.”

“You have to go. We all have to go.” She told him. 

“Who are you?” Leia asked. 

The woman spoke in a language Leia didn’t know. Maybe the language where Leia means justice. But as Leia and the woman and the boy fade away, she thinks she figures out the her name is Shmi. 

It was still dark when Leia woke up. Luke hasn’t stirred from where he was last night. Their hands are still clasped together. 

_Have you come to free us?_

She was here to rescue Han. She needed to get ready.

***  
Two weeks later, Han was safe. Jabba the Hutt was dead. And she sat in the Falcon, curled up with Han, watching Chewie and Lando take off. As they took off She heard, in the back of her mind _Thank you, Leia._

It was soft and sweet and felt almost like a grandmother’s kiss. Leia was going to come back.

**Author's Note:**

> Leia being captured and enslaved and then killing Jabba has some cool thematic potential. Its a shame the film makers cheapened it with sexual assault for the male gaze.
> 
> Check out my [tumblr](http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/).


End file.
